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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22700920">these golden ashes turn to dirt</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/okayantigone/pseuds/okayantigone'>okayantigone</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>cry havoc [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Assassination Attempt(s), Cassassian, Cassian is an assassin, Corelia, Emperor Kylo Ren, F/M, Gen, Grand Marshal Armitage Hux, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 11:35:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,453</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22700920</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/okayantigone/pseuds/okayantigone</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>cassian andor is sent to the throneworld of the new sith empire, to take out kylo ren and his consort, the starkiller. he uncovers something terrible about ren's identity in the process.<br/>-<br/>"of course it would be you," ben whispers.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso, Leia Organa/Han Solo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>cry havoc [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1638544</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Bad Things Happen Bingo</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>these golden ashes turn to dirt</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for the Voice Breaking square on my Bad Things Happen Bingo card.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>perhaps jyn is rubbing off on him too much after all, cassian thinks, as he settles himself in his sniper’s nest, beneath the curved eaves of ren’s imperial palace in krest. he’d borrowed a storm trooper’s uniform and snuck into the festivities, making way like a shadow through the palace.</p><p> </p><p>the new empire is still not quite as rich as the republic, and it shows in the décor, but though it lacks the opulence he’d seen in the senate rooms, and before that, on coruscant, back when it had been the throneworld, it does exactly what it’s set out to do – it intimidates, and impresses, with its gleaming blacks and reds.</p><p> </p><p>those are ren’s colors, and they mark his territories, with his banners proclaiming his rule over the former first order territories, the color of his terrifying black mask, and crimson saber. the holonet called him the new vader. cassian knew better. he was worse than vader.</p><p> </p><p>the firing of starkiller proved it. the deaths of snoke and palpatine at his hand proved it. he’d rampaged across the galaxy from the unknown regions, a faceless shadow, and he’d choked up the galaxy in a merciless fist, and then had the gall to pretend like he was engaging in peace talks.</p><p> </p><p>well – not him. he spends much of his time aboard his flagship, the <em>supremacy</em>, traversing the unknown regions, allegedly, looking for force artifacts. cassian knows what it means, because he remembers when much of the holonet said the same of vader. it’s thinly veilied code for <em>hunting other force sensitives down, before they can pose a threat. </em>all the same, it’s the other monster that ren sends in his place, for peace talks, and treaties and negotiations. the starkiller. general hux.</p><p> </p><p>cassian’s stomach rolls every time he sees that war criminal’s pallid smirking face on the holonet, with his pale monstrous eyes, and blood red hair, and the blood of millions on the crisp white gloves of his grand admiral uniform. they say he’s ren’s lover.</p><p> </p><p>they say ren once told, in confidence, that he’d allowed the firing of starkiller, because he liked the curve of hux’s ass. it hadn’t been clear who he’d told it to.</p><p> </p><p>but because ren is often away on those hunts of his, and because hux is so often sprawling in the senate rooms afforded to him through the screams of a system long dead, or else, pacing the bridge of his own flagship, <em>the obedience,</em> this is cassian’s one chance.</p><p> </p><p>and here’s where jyn’s influence comes, because before – maybe, thirty – even ten-twenty years ago, he would not have questioned it. you cut the head of the monster off, and the monster flails its enormous body, and then perishes. it had only taken one brilliant arch of starkiller cutting across the galaxy for the senate to realize – what few of them there were – that the war drums had been beating for a long time now, and all the cotton they’d stuffed in their ears couldn’t change that. and so he’d taken his orders. and jyn did not like it, though jyn did not like orders in general, and – he suspects – would never learn to.</p><p> </p><p>his orders came from the interim vice chancellor. his orders are to go to corellia, infiltrate ren’s fortress, and kill him – and hux – by any means necessary while they celebrate their reign, and the final end of the trade negotiations that would allow access of goods to the worlds under their control, so that their people may no longer starve.</p><p> </p><p>his orders are very clear. they are both to be disposed of. their heads are to be brought to the senate, to be mounted on pikes, their loyalists – to follow the same fate. it reminds him of the first days of the new republic’s infancy, when storm trooper helmets smelled of rot and stank up the streets.</p><p> </p><p>but those are not the orders that leia had communicated to him privately. her orders only mentioned hux. to be sniped from a safe distance. he’d choke on blood in his lover and master’s arms. but the senate knew better. without hux ren would be a wild wounded animal. generals are buried with a twenty gun salute. a grand admiral, who’s also the emperor’s concubine may just warrant a starkiller salute. they won’t risk it. he agrees with them.</p><p> </p><p>the discrepancy in orders nags at him, regardless. he is wary of it, as he shifts. from where he’s laying, he can comfortably see into the grand ball room, and has clear view of the courtyard. hux smokes tabacc with the jealous obsession of someone who’d been permitted few vices in life. often, talks on coruscant take pause,  so he can engage in disintegrating his lungs at his leisure. and if he slips away from festivities to indulge, then ren will surely join him. and that will be cassian’s chance. he just has to wait. and waiting he’s very familiar with.</p><p> </p><p>he watches the ball inside, out of his body. it’s like a holonet show, meaningless to him, when he has slipped into the place in his mind which allows him to kill quietly and indiscriminately when he is ordered to do so, for the greater good. he might tender his resignation in, after this. toppling regimes is best left to those younger than him, and he’s not in his twenties anymore, but by god, who else is left to do it?</p><p> </p><p>inside, the room is lined with ren’s elite praetorian guard in their bleeding red armor, echoing the color of his blade, and his knights, in oppressive heavy black. ren had not changed his dress according to his position, still armored and masked. terrifying and monstrous. his cape hangs heavy on his broad shoulders. some say that like vader, he too, is horribly disfigured. others say quite the opposite – that he is beautiful and young, and so hides his face, to avoid being underestimated. hux next to him is certainly beautiful and young. he is not formally the emperor’s consort, but he wears a thin platinum coronet, perched in his brilliant red hair, and his white came is emblazoned with gold thread for the occasion, a small shattered galaxy trailing down his slender frame. the legacy of the starkiller. they do not move together, but rather circle the room, like predators, and meet in the middle.</p><p> </p><p>it’s not discretion, cassian thinks. they are not discrete men. perhaps ren does not wish to flaunt his weakness. perhaps hux finds it distasteful – the assumption of how many laps he had to climb into to become a general so young, when the rest of the high command were all old enough to be his fathers and grandfathers.</p><p>all the same, hux looks pleased. satisfied. and why shouldn’t he be? he has committed, perhaps, the greatest crime since the firing of the death star upon alderaan, and unlike wilhuf tarkin, he survived to tell the tale. his creation may not – in essence – be operational anymore, but that matters very little, when he can build another. it all lives in that handsome youthful head that cassian’s trigger finger is itching to blow open. his blood will splatter on the white porous stones that line the courtyard, and stain his pretty uniform.</p><p> </p><p>he wonders if ren’s distraction will be enough for him to fire a second time. perhaps he ought to take ren out first, being that he is the bigger threat. he hopes hux is feeling raunchy. if the mask comes off… ren is dead.</p><p> </p><p>what surprises him most is that they dance. he can just about make out the music. it’s an odd choice for a first dance at a ball like this, an old naboo waltz. hux takes the role of the woman, bows deeply at the waist, and lets ren lead him. other couples of various species join. when the dance floor overflows, cassian loses sight of them for a moment. the room has exploded in color, with everyone’s beautiful moving gowns. the military guests are in uniform, black clad and severe-faced, but ren’s nobility has gone as all out as they can afford to. some dresses are rather last-last season. but the show is what matters. hux and ren make a fetching couple in black and white. they are some of the tallest that are dancing. when the dance ends, and everyone claps politely, hux bows curtly to ren, and finally, finally, makes his exit.</p><p> </p><p>cass calibrates his rifle. hux runs a hend through his crimson hair, and pats himself down for his silver tabacc case and lighter. he hand rolls, cass notes, and smokes without a filter. a gutter rat soldier, like the rest of them. he wonders if he prefers a sonic shower too, unaccustomed as he probably is to the luxury of running water. some reports say he’s grown in relative wealth. cassian has seen the ones that know better. a bastard who’d survived because his father couldn’t seem to get his legitimate wife pregnant, who’d lived with nothing, and had nothing. how must it feel to him now, to know he had single-handedly made the galaxy if not kneel, then bow to his might, if only for a minute? the monster who’d named his flagship <em>obedience</em> because that’s what he expected of those around him?</p><p> </p><p>leia’s informant – the former storm trooper – had talked about hux sometimes. the storm troopers admired him, he’d said. it was hard to imagine why. he’d looked at them then, incredulous. <em>how do you mean why? it’s because he was one of us, and he rose to such high rank. the conditioning… his father developed it on him first. </em></p><p> </p><p>the light of hux’s cigarette is a tiny red dot in the dusk. cass could easily shoot for it, and hit. hux finishes his cigarette. and stomps it out with his heavy black boot just as ren emerges. cass thanks the force, just in case she decides to rescind her blessing.</p><p> </p><p><em>now kiss, </em>he thinks.</p><p> </p><p>“i don’t know how you stand it,” ren says, his voice mechanic through the vococoder.</p><p> </p><p>“i feed on their fear,” hux says sardonically. “who doesn’t enjoy being praised.”</p><p> </p><p>“you’re worthy of it,” ren aquiesces. and then, after a beat. “congratulations, grand admiral. for bringing prosperity to my domain.”</p><p> </p><p>“our domain,” hux corrects haughtily, but even in the dark, through the scope of his rifle cassian can make out the pleased flush high on his cheeks.</p><p> </p><p><em>you poor, starved, rabid dog, </em>he thinks.</p><p> </p><p>“more yours than mine,” ren says again, with surprising ease.</p><p> </p><p>he reaches up, and cass holds his breath. with the muffled noise of hydraulics, the helmet hisses open.</p><p> </p><p>“what’s this?” hux asks, voice breathless. “i thought the great sith emperor did not want his subjects to know he was – “ he trails off, his blue eyes wide.</p><p> </p><p>“was…?” ren prompts. from this angle, cass can only make his half-profile.</p><p> </p><p>“beautiful,” hux says breathlessly.<br/>
<br/>
cassian should shoot them both now.</p><p> </p><p>“i’m not, really,” ren says, his great hulking shoulders slumping. cassian angles himself to take the shot.</p><p> </p><p>ren turns around, facing the garden, so he and hux are shoulder to shoulder. he’s not beautiful, really, cassian agrees. he’ll be even less so when his scarred face is charred with the entry wound. the scar bisects it in half, his disjointed features misaligned even more unfortunately because of it. he’s got a haughty nose, and big ears.</p><p> </p><p>he looks like –</p><p> </p><p>he looks like –</p><p> </p><p>cassian presses the scope into his eye socket hard enough to bruise, adjusts it, tries to unsee it.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>who is kylo ren?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>that is none of your concern, captain andor. what is your concern is that he must not leave corellia alive. he is too dangerous. him and hux both must be obliterated. </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>who is kylo ren, leia? </em>
</p><p>
  <em>it doesn’t matter who he is. i know he can be reasoned with. hux is the one with the real power. he’s pulling the strings, and ren is following his lead, the way he followed snoke and palpatine. remove hux from the equation, and ren will walk his new empire back ho – back into the republic. </em>
</p><p>he looks like ben.</p><p> </p><p>cassian doesn’t believe in the force. he’s seen it in action, but he doesn’t <em>believe </em>in it. but right now, at this moment, when the heavy knowledge that kylo ren doesn’t just <em>look </em>like ben… he knows, in his heart of hearts that <em>is </em>ben solo, and he knows the knowledge comes from beyond him. from the force.</p><p> </p><p>and that’s why leia didn’t want him dead, but the senate did. and that’s why han couldn’t blow star killer up when ren was still on it.</p><p> </p><p>ben solo, killed by luke’s willful arrogant apprentice kylo ren. oh, he’d never believed <em>luke skywalker, jedi master </em>for a second. the only force user he trusted was chirrut, and chirrut had been suspiciously quiet about the fires in the temple, and the dead padawans, merely letting out a quiet “hmm.”</p><p> </p><p>he had not offered to help luke rebuild. and so cassian had taken it as tacit permission to assume that luke was full of <em>bullshit. </em>like his father before him.</p><p> </p><p>ben solo is standing shoulder to shoulder with the starkiller, and looking out into the courtyard of his new emperor’s palace. and cassian has been ordered to shoot him dead. if this was thirty – even twenty years ago… he would not have hesitated. twenty years ago, ben solo was a sun-bright child, with the same large soulful eyes, and too-big ears, quiet and self-contained, preferring to sit on the floor and read and listen to the adults talk. he wanted to be a ship repair man – radar technician of some sort. maybe a test-pilot for one of the big production lines of his father’s home world on corellia.</p><p> </p><p>now he rules half the galaxy as the last true sith lord, and cassian has to kill him.</p><p> </p><p>and he won’t.</p><p> </p><p>leia’s orders only include hux. and he’d always been more loyal to the resistance than he was to the republic. he shifts again. blood will explode on hux’s uniform. his white cape will flutter around him as he falls down. he wonders if ben wil cry. he knows ben will kill him. ben decapitated lor san tekka, who used to bounce him on his knee when he’d been just a toddler.</p><p> </p><p>this is what the war had done to him. not this one. the other one. the bad one. the big terrifying war that his parents had grown up in. that’s what it had done to them both. ben, who stood calmly besides the harbringer of death, and cassian, who only for a moment thought about killing a child he’d helped raise.</p><p> </p><p>he shoves his rifle away, and the noise startles him and ren.</p><p> </p><p>“i thought i warned you about slacking off,” hux says haughtily, perhaps assuming it to be one of the perimeter guards cassian had dispatched.</p><p> </p><p>he drops from his crouch gracelessly, and tumbles into the grass at the far side, still in the shadow.</p><p> </p><p>“come out of the dark,” ren orders, to hux he adds “that’s not one of ours.” his voice is quiet and smooth, rumbling from deep within his chest. cassian obliges him, with his hands raised.</p><p> </p><p>ben’s scarred face crumples, the way it did when he was a child, looking at the horizon as the falcon jumped into hyperspace, knowing it would be months before he saw either of his parents again.</p><p> </p><p>he looks as though cassian has already shot him.</p><p> </p><p>“of course it would be you,” he says softly. his voice is resigned in a way cassian remembers hearing for much less serious conversations. like when he’d realize it was jyn’s cooking or nothing, because no one delivered that far out of the populated areas near their home.</p><p> </p><p>hux seems to take his cue from ren, because his squares his shoulders, produces his blaster, and aims it square at cassian’s chest. he has a perfect, two-handed stance. textbook ideal.</p><p> </p><p>ben still looks quietly distraught.</p><p> </p><p>“she sent you to finish the job, then?” ben asks, and sounds for all intents and purposes completely hollow, as though someone has taken an ice-cream scoop to his insides. “a lightsaber didn’t quite do the job,” he gestures vaguely at his face. “so she sent you?”</p><p> </p><p>a lightsaber.</p><p> </p><p>“i didn’t know,” cassian says, just as quiet. he looks up to meet ben’s eyes. it would inappropriate to comment on how tall ben has become. “i didn’t know,” he repeats. “i swear, i didn’t.”</p><p> </p><p>ben shakes his head, and his dark messy curls hide his eyes for a moment. “i don’t believe you,” he says.</p><p> </p><p>hux is not speaking. merely holds him in his aim, and looks, for all the world, like he can spend the whole night doing just that.</p><p> </p><p>“leia sent me for him,” cassian says, gesturing at hux vaguely with his fingers. “the senate sent me for you.”</p><p> </p><p>ben closes his eyes and breathes deeply. he says simply, “ah.”</p><p> </p><p>“i didn’t know,” cassian repeats uselessly. “your mother didn’t either.”</p><p> </p><p>“i don’t have – “ ben snarls, and his voice cracks. “i don’t have a mother,” he whispers. it sounds raw and broken, like he’s spitting glass. his voice has no right to sound so small, when he has become so big even the legends of his grandfather can’t contain him anymore. the new vader indeed. gods, they had all been right.</p><p> </p><p>“i don’t have a mother,” ben repeats, still broken. “i didn’t before, and i don’t know.”</p><p> </p><p>cassian remembers the only time he ever yelled at ben. it had been another last minute drop off, because leia was attending something. the last summer before they found out about vader being her father. “how come everyone else gets a mother, but i don’t?” ben had demanded, furious, eyes blazing. it had been cassian who’d shouted him.</p><p> </p><p>now he looks at the child – grown into a man – and wonders if ben had really been ready to believe that leia signed his death warrant. looks into that carved stone face, and knows that yes. yes, he had. because he knew his mother as an uncompromising champion of the people. and somewhere along the way, ben had stopped being her people.</p><p> </p><p>the knights make their way out from the ballroom, and into the courtyard, discreetly surrounding him.</p><p> </p><p>one of them speaks out loud, in a language that is probably a sith dialect, and ren responds in the same.</p><p> </p><p>“what will you do now?” he asks, curiously, tilting his head to the side.</p><p> </p><p>“i’ll go back. i’ll tell them i failed. your security is too good. you’re too powerful.”</p><p> </p><p>ben smiles wryly. it’s an ugly thing, and not just because it pulls awkwardly at his scar.</p><p> </p><p>“you think i’ll let you go?”</p><p> </p><p>“not really,” cassian admits. “but it was worth a shot.”</p><p> </p><p>ben shakes his head. “no, no. i will let you go. you can go. i believe you. that you didn’t know. i believe you.”</p><p> </p><p>cassian exhales, and lets his shoulders drop.</p><p> </p><p>“my knights will escort you to your ship,” ben says quietly. “and you will go back, and you will tell the senate that if hux dies, i won’t just fore starkiller at them. i’ll fire it at every civilized planet, until kriffing jakku is left as the biggest metropolitan center of culture and politics.”</p><p> </p><p>hux and cassian both look at him in surprise. hux looks pleased as he lowers his blaster, and holsters it again at his hip.</p><p> </p><p>kylo’s in love with him. the starkiller.</p><p> </p><p>“she just wants you to come back,” cassian says quietly.</p><p> </p><p>“i can never come back,” ren’s voice is resolute, the crack gone completely now. “i couldn’t before, and i can’t now. not ever.”</p><p> </p><p>“why?” cassian demands. “why can’t you – ben – “</p><p> </p><p>“don’t call me that,” ben snarls.</p><p> </p><p>“snoke is dead. palpatine is dead. why can’t you come back?”</p><p> </p><p>ben heaves a deep shuddering breath, and closes his eyes again. his lashes touch the slopes of his high cheekbones. he looks the way han looks these days – exasperated and exhausted.</p><p> </p><p>“ask luke,” ben says quietly. <em>a lightsaber didn’t quite do the job</em>. “you go back, and you ask luke why i can’t ever go back. ask him why i wear the mask. tell them i’m unkillable, and ask luke why. and if he tells you, maybe he isn’t as much of a coward as i always thought he was.”</p><p> </p><p>“b – kylo.” cassian says, but the boy has already hidden his tear-streaked face behind the chrome faceplate.</p><p> </p><p>“go before i’ve changed my mind,” he says. through the vococoder he doesn’t even sound like he’s crying. he sounds monstrous and inhuman. cassian lets the knights escort him out and away.</p>
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